Storyboard Text

I can say with great certainty that slavery will hurt the jobs of whites!

Bleeding Kansas﻿

﻿John Brown’s Raid at Harper’s Ferry

Westward expansion reopened the issue of whether slavery would be allowed in new areas. Douglas's Kansas-Nebraska act organizes the two territories on the basis of popular sovereignty.

Dred Scott vs Sandford case

You will never be a citizen.﻿ You have "no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

As elections for the first territorial legislature took place, pro-slavery Missourians invaded the territory, making the election unfair. Pro-slavery legislature in Kansas grew, as did tensions. Soon violence broke out between those who did and those who did not support slavery. About 56 people died by the end of this conflict.

Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party

I believe that slavery is "a moral, social, and political wrong" and "a house divided against itself cannot stand."

John Brown, pictured with the gun, marches his army to Harper's Ferry. He is expecting to liberate slaves, with them following him in a violent path to the North. He killed many people in the way of the arsenal. The slaves never followed Brown's lead, however. He would die as a martyr to the North's anti-slave cause.

﻿The Election of 1860

When Dred Scott's owner died in 1846, Scott would sue for his freedom. He thought he was free, as he once lived in Illinois and Wisconsin. This case reached Supreme Court and it was decided that he wasn't a citizen, and therefore couldn't bring suit in court. The Dred Scott decision proved that the US government regarded black citizens to be "beings of an inferior order”.

Roger B. Taney writes the majority opinion against Scott in March 1857

The Republican party﻿ opposed the expansion of slavery. Made up of antislavery Whigs, Democrats, and some Free-Soldiers, in 1854 the Republican Party formed. In Illinois, Republican Abraham Lincoln ran for a seat in the U.S. Senate. He spoke out against the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the expansion of slavery. Stephen Douglas was his opponent whom Abraham debated against.

Abraham Lincoln leads the Republican Party with anti-slavery views﻿

Democrat John Breckinridge and Republican Abraham Lincoln﻿ fight for presidency. The Republicans centered their platform to attract northern industrialists, wage earners, and midwestern farmers. The voting concluded with Lincoln winning with 40% of the popular vote and 180 electoral votes.